Johnson & Drake were Minnesota music before Minnesota music was cool. They toured nationally for years, performing with, among others, Earth, Wind and Fire, REO Speedwagon, Linda Ronstadt, Ray Stevens, John Hartford, Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show, The Grass Roots, Bonnie Raitt and Jim Croce. And then there was a close tragedy that changed the trajectory of their careers. But 40 years later, they are back together making music and are releasing a new album called We Loved Our Freedom. It inspiring and instructional if you want to learn the lessons. You can see them play live on July 16 at 318 Café in Excelsior.
Your story is so interesting and given that you are releasing your first album in 40 years(!), it feels like a story of resilience. Your new album, We Loved Our Freedom, tells your story but also the story of Minnesota. Can you tell us about your story? And why you have come back together now?
Tom and I have been writing songs together since 1967. We have an enormous catalogue of unreleased songs, over 130. Our challenge is getting them fully recorded and released. Tom has lived in Springfield, Illinois for many years while I’ve stayed in the Twin Cities. We have recording studios with the same software in both cities, and we exchange music, lyrics, vocal parts, mixes, etc., on a constant basis. “We Loved our Freedom” is a collection of recent songs that we put together because we were really anxious to have people start hearing what we have been writing. Our goal is to release another 6 albums of unreleased songs as soon as we can finish producing them, plus an additional 2 unreleased albums of material from the 1970’s and 80’s that we have been restoring.
During those 40 years between album releases Tom and I each pursued careers in business in order to pay our bills while creating music. Tom worked in music software development and sales, and I worked in adult education and training. After retiring in 2013 I was ordained and have served as an Episcopal deacon at a parish in Minnetonka.
Stayed Up Too Late pulls at the heart strings. It’s partially because the lyrics conjure memories but also the sound of the vocals and piano literally seems to pull at the heart in a physical way. What was the inspiration?
My wife Nan and I have been together for 56 years. Staying up too late at night in long conversation has been a defining aspect of our entire relationship. The last verse is about the night we met when she came backstage with a mutual friend after the opening night performance of a rock musical that Tom and I had written, “Genesis VI.” We hung out after the show on the banks of the Mississippi near the University of Minnesota neighborhood that each of us lived in.
“The very first night I met you it seemed to feel so right
Wanting to be with you right through the dawning light
There’s been so many years that have passed like a blur between today and then
And we stayed up too late last night again”
We Loved Our Freedom, the song, speaks so much to current events. Unfortunately, it could be the soundtrack to many eras – and you have seen a few of those eras. How do you think music impacts and is impacted by our difficult times? And has that role changed over the years?
I had the joy of attending the opening night of Bruce Springsteen’s current Land of Hope and Dreams Tour at the Target Center in downtown Minneapolis. It was a brilliant example of one of our greatest musical artists being impacted by difficult times and creating moving, relevant, powerful musical experiences from it. Springsteen has been doing this since “Born in the USA,” and so many great composers like Dylan, Joan Baez, Stephen Stills, Marvin Gaye, Randy Newman, Paul Simon, Bob Marley and so many others have created a decades-long timeline of contemporary musical responses to difficult times.
Let’s Fall in Love may (or may not) have been written about romantic love, but I can only hear it as a battle cry of sorts in a world where they have guns and we have whistles. It is such a good line. What was the original intent?
You heard it right. I am drawn to writing lyrics that have that twist in the meaning where you can hear it in more than one way, The intent was to address the hatefulness that has emerged in our national dialogue, and to say that if we are really going to falter after our 250 year history, let’s not fall into hate. Let’s fall into love.
“There were never any guarantees that this would even fly” refers to the founding of America, “Though we got it safely off the ground” references the many terrible challenges we faced as a nation and somehow endured. At least until now.
Please tell us about your upcoming album release.
We are excited to finally be releasing songs that Tom and I have been working on creating for a long, long time. We sorted carefully though the recordings we had made in the last few years and assembled them into an album that we hope is cohesive and consistent. We are very anxious for our loyal followers to hear this music and see how it fits alongside albums we have in release from 1973,1975, and 1986. We are among a very small group of songwriting teams that have continued to write together for over half a century. Although it would have been nice to have enjoyed the record sales of Jagger and Richards, the creativity and collaboration that Tom and I have shared over the years have made for an incredible ride.
Mostly Minnesota 